


Art for Art's Sake

by uumuu



Series: To Fall Into Place [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Exhibitionism, M/M, Nude Modeling, Pre-Slash, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5030971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fëanor asks Fingolfin to pose for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Art for Art's Sake

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after A Touch.

The encounter near the pool had left a strong impression on Ñolofinwë. The sensations and the strange mood of that morning continued to haunt his thoughts, lurked at the back of his mind whenever he undressed or bathed. Yet, he told himself he shouldn't assign too much relevance to them, find meanings in them they didn't have. The encounter was an insignificant incident weighed against the abiding rift between himself and Fëanáro, the lack of any sort of relationship – fraternal or otherwise – between them.

He acted as if it had never happened, much as Fëanáro himself seemed to do. He pretended to forget it, until the day one of Fëanáro's assistants delivered a message to him, coming all the way from Fëanáro's house in the western suburb of Tirion to his own in the easternmost quarter. 

The message was written on fine parchment, in what he knew to be Fëanáro's own hand by some of the manuscripts kept in the Royal Library and the card which accompanied the present for his coming of age, a set of jewels he had never used and was still stored in the box it had come with.

Fëanáro had worded the message cleverly and – on the surface – respectfully, but it could be read as a veiled insult, too. It asked, in a very circuitous manner, whether the High Prince would have graciously deigned to pose in the nude for him, since he enjoyed being seen naked. 

Ñolofinwë considered a curt reply, something equally as insinuating, or even openly offensive, but in the end decided that the best option he had, the one which left him more room to gauge Fëanáro's true intentions and react accordingly, would be to comply with the request. 

Fëanáro did seem a little surprised when Ñolofinwë actually stood in the vestibule of his house, where he had been ushered by his assistant and friend Ñillerámë, herself quite bemused by his arrival.

“I'm glad you came,” Fëanáro said however, his voice devoid of any hesitancy, and laced if anything with a little sarcasm. 

Ñolofinwë scoffed lightly, waving his right arm insouciantly. If Fëanáro didn't back out, he wouldn't either. “I happened to have some spare time.”

“Well then, this way,” Fëanáro said and started striding towards the same door from which Ñolofinwë had only a few minutes before entered.

He took him across the garden, and to a large one-room building illuminated not by treelight, but by rows of lamps which had been placed so as to create different lighting and shading conditions, and only sparsely furnished. 

“Here, you can leave your clothing on this stand,” Fëanáro said, lifting several stacks of paper from a small wooden bench. Then he turned his back on Ñolofinwë and walked to the other end of the room, setting the paper down and opening a cabinet filled to overflowing with supplies.

Ñolofinwë started to divest himself, undoing the buttons of his light shirt. At first, he felt somewhat self-conscious – not out of shame, but because a part of him had in fact wanted exactly that: to be naked again before Fëanáro, and the less clothed he was, the bolder he became. 

He cleared his throat as soon as he was done, and Fëanáro walked back to him, setting the pencils and sheets of paper he carried on a low table next to a stool in the very middle of the room.

“The last time I saw you naked,” he began, as if he had seen Ñolofinwë naked a large number of times, “you asked me if I like your body.” His hands grabbed Ñolofinwë's sides just below his armpits. It was different from that morning near the pool, Ñolofinwë noticed. There was a greater attentiveness – almost admiration, he fancied – to Fëanáro's gaze. His eyes studied Ñolofinwë's chest keenly, from his collarbones over his chest and stomach all the way to his crotch, his hands following slowly down his sides. They stopped on his hips. “Do you exercise often?”

 _'My mother taught me to run'_ , would have been Ñolofinwë's instinctive reply. “I like to run,” he said instead, and could tell from the slight twitch in Fëanáro's thin lips that he understood the implication all the same. He made no retort, however, and so Ñolofinwë went on. “I also wrestle, often.”

“You like to be pinned down, quasi-naked?”

Ñolofinwë flinched, and his chest rippled with the gasp he stifled.

“I almost always win,” he stiffly said.

Fëanáro's lips stretched into a smile. “Well, let's start.” He instructed Ñolofinwë to make himself comfortable on a curious seat that was something halfway between a large armchair and a small sofa, with a low backrest. It stood right opposite the table where Fëanáro had deposited his supplies, and they were face to face as Fëanáro sat on the stool.

Ñolofinwë watched him mount a sheet of paper on a low easel. A delightful prickling began to spread over his skin at the mere thought that in a few instants Fëanáro's eyes would be on him again, would by necessity take in each and every contour of his body. He would measure it, and replicate it, and in a way make it his own. The idea was so gratifying that Ñolofinwë shivered at the sound of Fëanáro's voice as his half-brother directed him to stretch both his legs on the seat, and every time he made him shift to a new pose after that. Fëanáro sketched each one quickly, as if he were not quite satisfied with them.

“This will be the last one,” he said, when the used sheets had already formed a significant mound on the table.

Ñolofinwë was by then pervaded by a dull but undeniable arousal, like the rhythmic drumline to a decadent song. Fëanáro observed him for a while – longer than before – inclining his head left and right, his eyes sparkling when he finally reached a decision. 

“Fold your right leg, and perch your foot on the edge of the sofa...bend it outwards...yes, like that”, he said, combing the hair that had fallen over his face behind his ear. “Stretch your left leg out, relax. Let your left arm dangle over the armrest, and throw the right one over the backrest –” Ñolofinwë felt himself flush as he pictured the resulting pose, but did as told, “– loosen up... _perfect_.”

The position put Ñolofinwë entirely, wantonly on display. He couldn't hide his cock, and the fact that he was half-hard. He couldn't hide the flush to his cheeks or the movement of his chest as it heaved with every slow, delight-filled breath he took. At the same time, it highlighted the beauty and vigour of his body. His muscles, those of his left leg at rest, the ones of his right tensed up and bulging, his height, even the smoothness of skin, stretched out to let the light from the lamps overhead lick at it. 

Fëanáro stared at him unblinkingly for what felt like an eternity. He clearly _knew_. “Close your eyes,” he instructed, his voice a low rumble.

Ñolofinwë's eyelids lowered over his eyes and his head rolled to the side, in utter abandon.

He had to struggle to remain motionless, resisting a feverish itch to lower his right hand and touch himself – pinch his own nipples and stroke his own cock – and make that moment all that he wished for the most. He could tell, by the insistent scratching of the pencil on the sheet, that Fëanáro was drawing – not just sketching, fixing him in that position. 

“Excellent!” Fëanáro exclaimed as soon as he was done. “You can relax.”

Ñolofinwë re-opened his eyes, but Fëanáro wasn't in his line of sight already. He stirred, flexed his legs and arms, bending slightly to the left to try to peer at the sheet still on the easel. Before he could, Fëanáro stood next to him and tossed his clothes at him. 

“My faultless brother, a _brazen_ exhibitionist,” he said, as if he had finished an experiment and it had yielded the exact conclusion he expected. 

Ñolofinwë froze at those words. Fëanáro clearly knew, had guessed his true desires, and of course he would look down on him for them. His excitement withered and turned to bitterness. He felt like a fool. 

“Would you like to see the drawings?” 

Ñolofinwë hastily put his undergarments and pants back on. “No,” he said, curtly enough to sting Fëanáro's pride with perfunctory dismissal of his work. “I require compensation for my time,” he added then in as dry a tone as he could manage, and proceeded to ask for an exorbitant quantity of raw gems, to which Fëanáro agreed without batting an eyelid, but with all trace of amusement drained from his face. 

Two of Fëanáro's assistants delivered two caskets full of the finest gems punctually, seven days later, carrying them to his own set of rooms in the Palace, where he had taken up residence in view of the upcoming celebration of the New Year's festivities.

Ñolofinwë had in fact no use for the precious stones. He had demanded them to relegate the encounter within the boundaries of a business-like transaction, and was content with that. He divided one casket between Findecáno and Írissë and the other between Turucáno and Aracáno.

That should have been the end of the little game between Fëanáro and himself, but it was not. Seven weeks later, when he had already moved back to his own house, Ñillerámë presented him with a gold-gilded statuette, fitted at the base with a shallow bowl to be used as an incense burner. An outstanding work, not so much for the materials used but the obvious care put into every detail of it.

He was turning it in his hands, unsure whether to be annoyed or outraged, and debating with himself whether to keep it or dispose of it or – what would have been a major offence – return it, when Anairë soundlessly came up behind him, and peered around his back.

“That's you?” she said, eyes widening slightly as she recognised the features of shamelessly lounging figure.

Ñolofinwë put the statuette back on the table where he had deposited it after unpacking it, and turned to Anairë. He pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek and nodded. 

“Who made it?”

Ñolofinwë took a deep breath before answering: “Fëanáro.”

“Why would Fëanáro make something like this? You asked him to?”

“No –” Ñolofinwë dithered but an instant. “You remember that day I went to sit for him?” Anairë nodded. He gestured towards the object. “That's the last pose he asked me to do. ...do you think it's meant as a taunt?” 

“...I doubt he would lose so many hours of work just to prod you, when he can and does much more readily,” she said, assessing the statuette. “I would have taken it for one of Nerdanel's own. How will you thank him?”

It was one of the unwritten rules of courtly etiquette that a present always had to be reciprocated, but Ñolofinwë hadn't been thinking about that. The statuette could in fact be a means on Fëanáro's part to get something out of him, again. He remembered the thrilling sensation of being looked at by him, the way his body had felt _alive_. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet and lowered his head. 

“Ñolvo, it's all right,” Anairë promptly reassured him. She put both arms around him, and hugged him. “You don't have to be ashamed of your desires, not with me.” He nodded, immensely relieved that he could be frank with Anairë about those desires that weren't becoming for someone of his status and position. Anairë and he hadn't married for love, but they had become very close, and if the affection between them wasn't properly love, it was something just as beautiful, and as easeful. 

“See what he wants,” Anairë urged.

Ñolofinwë recalled Fëanáro's last remark. “He could simply take advantage of this...weakness of mine.”

“Or you might find that this is the one thing that will bring you two close. That doesn't look to me like art for art's sake. If anything, it's proof that he keeps thinking about you. You told me he looked fascinated when he saw you near the pool, did he not?”

“...what do you propose I do?”

Anairë gave his back one last squeeze and drew back. She tapped her chin with her index finger, musing. “Invite him to dine with you. Just the two of you. Here. ...and if anything goes wrong, I will be there.”

**Author's Note:**

> The statue I had in mind for Fingolfin's pose is [this one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barberini_Faun).


End file.
